The First Page
by MessengerOfDreams
Summary: A world weary, emotionally recovering adventurer and an optimistic, exuberant swordswoman meet by chance in the hinterlands. That's how the story starts. There are never endings without beginnings, you know.


**A/N Well here's an excuse to publish a story! Shot**

**Yeah, so I realized that with the Commission topic the way it is, the stories will probably not be very much seen in there. And from the looks of it the commission topic may very much be dead, so I don't want the stories extra-excavated. I'm still considering making _To Describe My Love _its own story, but I don't think it holds a candle to _The First Page_, which I very much like (although _it _doesn't hold a matchstick to _Viva La Vida_.**

**Either way, though, it holds a place in my heart but I always forget about it with it being square in the middle of the commission topic. So here we are. **

**The story itself is a LinkxLyn pairing and was a request for RawkHawk2.0 (and some anonymous user named WAIT, which is probably only because he/she/it changed his mind on the pairing to Link/Lyn.) It's a bit autobiographical; I have these kind of cleansing trips every once in awhile and they usually result in big changes (in fact, it started my consistent philosophical/heartfelt oneshot phase with Sparks.) Now if only I could get the girl while I'm out. :3**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, regret nothing and let them forget nothing.**

**Right this way, ladies and gentlemen, don't be shy!**

Either Link had a penchant for adventure, or adventure had a penchant for him.

One way or another, he found himself out on the dusty trails pursuing a goal for the good of his people. He spent more time on those trails than he did at the home he defended. This time, though, he wasn't out on a quest to save the world. He was on a quest because he could.

The third Smash Bros Tournament had just recently ended, and he was actually quite glad to be home, and by home, he really meant 'not there.' The amount of chaos was quite a drastic change from someone who, aside from the adventures, lived a quiet life. The hootin' and the hollerin', back and forth with the arguin', who you are, where you're from, what you're make and what kind of car you're in.

Oh yes. It also warrants mentioning that Link had grown an odd fondness for rap music during his third stay, one of a grand total of probably about five modern things he could appreciate. Not that it changed him into a pimp, but good rap music was an art form he found an appreciation for that contrasted a lot of him and his life. He never fell into the status quo trap that was subtly in the ranks of the smashers. He just wanted to be him and battle with the best.

But, really, not much had changed with him. Even with a wardrobe change; he found a kilt and hat to be quite difficult to fight and do much activity with lately and exchanged it with a fit-for-the-outdoors bundled vest and pant. And he occasionally took out his cheap mp3 player to listen to some music. But he was still the same reserved, dedicated and self-confident warrior he always was and always would be.

Truly, after the tourneys ended and everything, it was nice just to return to one's roots. And that's what found him, in a time gratefully without warlocks to fight or temples to make an excursion through, to go on an adventure of his own accord.

And so he wandered north on the dusty trail in the hinterlands. He wore his more modern clothes, but his defensive equipment as well as his sleeping bag and other outdoor supplies lay in his old bag and his sword in his sheath next to it. A bluff created a wall to his immediate east and curved around towards the path a few miles away. To his west were the plains, full of wilted pale green and almost clear brown grass and occasional shrub. Occasional fruit trees lined some of the paths, untamed but welcome to all. It was a desert with fertile land in it. He liked it.

On purpose he had not brought a map. He didn't want to decide where he went just yet, but to let the luck of the draw guide him. Sure, he'd ask people he ran into occasionally where he was, but it wasn't that big a deal.

It had been three uneventful days since he had last been in any sort of township. The last one was Weathered Hills in Hyrule, towards the border. He was probably in a different land right now. The journey was getting a bit too aimless for his tastes, but he was living with it with no regret. It had allowed him to think, detox the life in the mansion. He appreciated having that.

He sighed with a melancholy content; although he was happy, he couldn't help but feel that something was missing; not to mention detoxing off the mansion's chaos was, to put it in best terms, a bitch (a word of modern vocabulary that he had learned, perhaps through his music.) Exhausting his soul but allowing his proper contents back in. Like jumping in a cold lake; freezing cold but refreshing.

He looked around at the fruit trees aligned on an intersecting dirt path, considering grabbing a bit of cherries from a row of cherry trees. Funnily, there were both fruit-bearing cherry trees and cherry blossoms. It seemed too coordinated to be a coincidence, so Link deduced that it must have been part of a farm. He walked over anyways to see a wooden sign before the crossing that read in white painted letters "Help Yourself To My Cherries." Link thought that a good enough and convenient enough sign to take one off of the vine.

The path that intersected with his own was intriguing to him, and since he had no set place to go, he decided to follow it. He had barely taken two steps down it when he heard a voice.

It was a female voice. Soft, low and laced with moderate cheer. He looked around to see its source; a young woman with long green hair and eyes to match, and dressed in a blue cloak that covered the length of her body, although she wore jeans underneath. She looked quite familiar, a thought that occurred as Link saw her reaching up with a Mani Katti- a sword he recognized very familiarly- to the top of the trees, as if she was trying to get some of the grapes off. The voice was somewhat robust, so he could hear her words clearly.

"Just a little more... almost got it..." she accented this with a leap, as if to reach higher. "Crikey. A little more that-a-way, and-" whatever self-encouraging words she had to say next were interrupted by a surprised, albeit bemused yelp as a large cluster of cherries fell on top of her, enough to make her stumble as she caught the branch. "Wow," was all she had as a response.

Link looked on in amused surprise as she shook a few blending leaves out of her hair and caught Link's line of sight! "Hello, traveler!" she greeted him with a smile and evenly upbeat words. "Could you use some cherries?"

Link nodded, not about to let them go to waste as he walked the ten-foot distance between them. Her smile broadened as she cut the branch straight down the middle cleanly, giving the smaller lopsided half to Link with a slight brush of the hand against his. Making nothing of it (while Link had gone slightly red; surprised by the gesture), she explained "I hope you don't mind the shorter half- didn't know how lopsided it was."

"No worries at all," he responded, his voice quiet as it tried to get used to conversation again.

She smiled, tucking her branch away in her brown knapsack. She gave Link a once-over and said "Say... that sword looks familiar. Where have I seen that before?"

So she thought him familiar as well. He must know her. "Perhaps you've heard of me," he replied. "Link of Hyrule. I have a reputation for being somewhat of a hero. I just got out of the Third Smash Tournament; considering the coverage of the event you may have seen me there."

A grin crept up on the girl's face as she held out a hand. "Of course! I was there too, as one of the assistants!" When Link, processing this information, didn't accept her handshake, she politely took his hand for him. "Lyndis of the Sacaen Plains. Part of the Fire Emblem United Lands. It's nice to see you again, Link, although it's a shame I'm now the only swordfighter from there wearing a skirt."

Normally jokes like that grated on Link, but Lyn had a presence that felt as if she meant no harm. She gave him the briefest of winks that he almost missed, and so he couldn't help but crack a grin. "It's nice to see you again, Lyndis."

"Oh, I prefer Lyn," she responded, looking away only as she uttered that sentence with non-accusatory disapproval. "Anyway, before you apologize, let me stop you and ask you what you're doing out here."

"Oh, err..." Link was caught off-guard a bit; sure Lyn was an acquaintance but he wasn't expecting that question on his journey. "I'm not really sure; I'm just letting the effects of the tournament wear off, I suppose."

"I understand," she took his hand and clearly thought nothing of it, and Link was learning to ease into it. Lyn was simply an affectionate person. "It was mildly, how to say, insane."

Link liked her analogy. "I agree on that one," he mumbled with a dry chuckle.

"I suppose I've been doing the same," she replied with a drawn-out sigh to accent her statement. "I'm closer to home than you, but it's still somewhat renewing."

"Where am I?" Link asked. "I haven't kept track."

Lyn laughed. "Myself neither, but yesterday it was within Crimea. I guess we'll work it out for ourselves later."

"Ourselves?"

Lyn blinked, and let his hand go. "Oh! Excuse me for being assumptive; would it be all right? If I traveled with you, I mean. It's been getting lonely and I'm a bit of a social butterfly and all." Her last half of the sentence was accented by a nervous chuckle, somewhat embarrassed by her mistake.

Link considered. He wasn't expecting company but he wasn't denying any either. It wasn't like Lyn would be a burden; she was a bit overeager, but polite and warm. "I'd enjoy that," he replied.

"Excellent!" Lyn grinned widely and, before Link could react, enveloped him in a happy embrace. She drew away, a hand on his shoulder without overwhelming, with little awkwardness and chuckled again "I apologize; I've noticed myself growing less... composed. I like it, though."

Link gave her a polite smile. "You needn't worry," he replied. He shifted his gaze to the sunset and stated "We should make camp. Brought any camping material?"

"Me? No, I'm a rather warm-blooded person. I don't really need to cover up. I prefer to lay under the stars."

"Huh." Quite the idealist, this girl. "Suit yourself."

"Boring," she teased. It seemed to Link that she held no barriers to anything; it was almost like she considered him a close friend already. "So, under the cherry blossom cluster over there?"

Link looked in the direction she was pointing. There was a group of cherry blossom trees by the base of the bluff wall. He thought it a nice retreat. "I like it. Shall we?"

As a response, she made a slight bound towards the area, and Link followed with a smile. This was going to be most interesting.

Making camp took a grand total of five minutes- Link set up his sleeping bag and Lyn gathered fallen sticks and branches for a fire, which with a bit of effort she was able to start. She relaxed a bit and allowed herself to bask in the warmth as Link brought out a small branch of cherries from his bundle. He tossed a couple to Lyn, who caught them instantaneously. _Fast reflexes, _he mused.

"I have a premonition," she declared, "that this is going to be the start of something great. Well, that's not saying much coming from an unyielding optimist such as myself, but I tend to believe it anyways."

"Might as well," he responded, under the base level of mirth.

Lyn wrinkled an eyebrow. "You don't agree?"

"No, I'm game for anything," he argued defensively.

"But do you hope so?"

There was a youthful expectancy in her gaze that made it hard to respond. "Erm..."

"Well, if you don't, do," her response had a level of discipline in it. "Because it makes it more fun."

Link spared a slight chuckle. "I... don't really know what to expect."

Lyn crept next to her companion, putting an arm around his shoulder. "Well, if you don't know what to expect," she lilted dreamily, "may as well expect the best. I mean, look at it." Admiring, she motioned towards the sky, night finishing its fall. "The stars, the moon, they could all have been blown out, but they're not. And I don't expect them to be. Because every one of them represents a possibility of what could happen. The stars are gorgeous, so I believe they are all good ones. I just gotta find them, and in order to find them, I've got to expect them. And I'm expecting them right now. I've already traveled a few weeks in that mindset and it's helped me relax a bit."

"Ah..." he rather liked her spirit and words. "I'll have to remember that."

"Please do."

She released her hold on him and reclined a foot away from him, and Link found the space to be somewhat empty. She sat in quiet, glazed contemplation towards the stars she loved so much. The minutes went by somewhat emptily, and Link found the emptiness to be somewhat disorienting. It was amazing how meeting someone after going alone for a month made such a difference. He felt a bit of reassurance at her presence, and acknowledged with a bit of exasperation how emotionally raw he must be right now.

Lyn spoke up to clear his thoughts. "Say, Link, how would you like to find a destination?"

"A what?"

"A goal. Somewhere to go. Instead of wandering with no end in sight."

"You have somewhere in mind, don't you?"

"You already know me so well," she chuckled, although it was more of an enchanted giggle. "You prepared for something outlandish?"

"I already was."

Lyn punched him in the elbow. "Of course you were. Well..." she hesitated but went on with a 'hell with it' shrug, "I always wanted to see the Fountain of Dreams."

"...that's in space."

"Literally outlandish."

"...that's in space."

"And space travel is a lot more common outside of here."

"...if you insist."

"If you're gonna do it," she regarded him with a stern glare, "then at least want to do it."

"I do, I do."

"Damn well better," a bit of lightheartedness returned to her words. "And I propose we take the long way to the Cornerian colony."

"That I can get behind. You wanna see the land of our world?"

"Of course. Through the fire and the flames, or through the mushroom trees and the fields of gold; the cities and the wilderness; the world is our oyster, after all."

Link found himself taking her hand, endeared by her enthusiasm. "Of course. Why do you want to go to the Fountain of Dreams?"

"Really..." Lyn looked away, somewhat embarrassed. "...I think it'd be nice to go as far away from everything I know and then contemplate what to do with it all, among the dreams and the stars. The real thing, too- not the boarded up stage model."

Link remembered fondly his fights on the stage in the second tournament- there were some things he could be fond of from the experience. The second tournament was somewhat relaxed, though, which he attributed to less romantic tension. Probably due to lack of Ike. He urged himself to let the thoughts of the mansion go. The thoughts of Zelda hand-in-hand with the swordsman.

Lyn looked at him knowingly, and on instinct wrapped an arm around his chest and drew him close to her in a sideways embrace which he accepted without ceremony. "It'll be good for you, too," she tenderly whispered into his pointed ear.

Link smiled at her words and the obvious care she had in them. Quietly, he moved out of her arm and went towards his sleeping bag. "I'm going to head in for the night."

"Of course," she replied, unfazed. "I should do the same." She crawled over next to him and gave him one last hug. "Sleep well, Link," she told him comfortingly. Link was a bit fazed on how well she picked up on his feelings but awkwardly returned the hug.

Lyn frowned a bit out of Link's gaze, but deduced that she'd get him to warm up to her affectionate ways. She let him go and watched as he crept into his sleeping bag, burying his face into the built-in pillow. She lay on the patch of grass, a petal falling on her face. She liked moments that were picture perfect like that.

With a short prayer to a god she didn't know the identity of, she closed her eyes, put Link's headphones in her ears, turned on the player and relaxed.

All the burrowing in his pillow in the world wouldn't get him to sleep that night.

He knew he should have kept it off his mind, damn it. The thoughts of the woman he was sorting out his feelings for in the arms of another just after he could get his thoughts together and tell her he loved her. It was just plain dumb luck slapping him in the face. Oh, well. He'd never get past it if he hid it away. But he didn't want to get past it now. He wanted to sleep, damn it.

He adjusted himself so that he was looking to his right, and he noticed that Lyn was asleep, the lone cherry blossom petal floating just above her nose with every breath. She still had a smile on her face, unfazed even in her dreams. He looked at her with a smile, wishing he had her fortitude. His gaze adjusted to something familiar- was that...

Hah, the rascal. Swiped his music player. Surprising that she knew how to use such technology as he hadn't pegged her as the type. He traced the headphone cord to the little capsule she had placed on her chest, moving up and down with it every other second in coordination with her heartbeat. When he strained a bit, he could hear his favorite rap song playing out of the buds; _Live Your Life _by TI. He deduced that it must have switched there as she slept, but relaxed in the sound of secondhand music.

Gingerly, he removed the headphone from her right ear and awkwardly placed it in his left. It didn't quite fit, but it was good enough. He let the reassuring music play in his ear in order to relax off to sleep.

In the ear turned away from her, he heard Lyn whisper "I love that song." He glanced over in surprise to see a very much awake Lyn, eyes still closed but mouth still moving with the song. "Hey-ayyyyaaaya, just living my life."

Out of earshot, he sang in coordination with her quiet, mirthful tones. She had a nice voice, as gentle and uplifting as the woman herself. He looked at the stars, and back at her, and deduced that she was onto something with her premonition. He had a feeling this was the start of something magnificent. The first page to his best story yet.

And it was.

**A/N- I hope Lyn's not too out-of-character. I know she's good-hearted and optimistic but she seemed more balanced than this, but it was somewhat intentional, as you've read.**

**As always, I hope you enjoy this. This was one of those stories I took into real life and transformed to barely a recognizable version, and left as a plot bunny to expand on one day. Who knows what could happen?**

**Also, there was something about future pairings. Whenever I get back into writing I do want to try a yaoi pairing. Reason being that I rarely see guys do those and being a straight male I wouldn't really be in for the attraction of it, just for the relationship and for experience. **

**But for now, until I get writing again, there's this. Enjoy!**

**MoD**


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